My Lords, I, like all noble Lords, want to see more research into mesothelioma, above all into ways to prevent people developing this terrible and lethal disease. Noble Lords may be aware that quite recently Russia, leading a group of another six countries —Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Zimbabwe, India and Vietnam—blocked a move to have white asbestos listed under the UN convention that requires member countries to decide whether or not they should risk importing that substance. I fear that asbestos-related diseases, including mesothelioma, will long remain with us; we will need research for the long term.
I am entirely sympathetic to the purposes of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, his co-signatories to the amendment and the larger number of co-signatories to the letter that they were kind enough to send to us. I congratulate the noble Lord on his dedication in this matter. However, I have some difficulties in accepting the precise proposition of the noble Lord. I have no problem about hypothecating part of the levy for the purpose of research; I accept that precedents are there in the Gambling Act, the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act and other measures. I would not presume to take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, on the question of viability as he has just expounded it. In Committee, I heard noble Lords who are eminent in the fields of medicine and academic research support the case made by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and I applaud them for that.
However, there is a problem. The insurance industry has told us that it is a willing funder on the basis that the Government will fund the major part of the costs of research. The employer’s liability insurers see themselves as very much the junior partner in that partnership with the state. It was probably not the case with the gambling legislation and the other measures that have been referred to that the Government were expected to more than match the funding that the relevant industry should supply.
These amendments omit to state the implication for government funding of what they would impose on the insurance industry. I wonder why that is so. I can
imagine that there are good reasons why the amendments do not require the state to commit itself to fund mesothelioma research specifically.
At one time I was Minister for Higher Education and Science; that experience confirmed me in my very strong belief in the arm’s-length system. If we were to abandon that, it would be only a few steps to the relationship between Stalin and Lysenko. The arm’s-length principle is essential for the maintenance of academic freedom and for research quality. Of course, it is legitimate for the Government to take a strategic view and, indeed, for the Department of Health and the National Institute of Health Research to set priorities and make broad allocations. As the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, told us, when he was a member of the Medical Research Council, the council identified broad priority areas, although it did not think it appropriate to identify individual diseases for which it was determined to fund research. That was because the criterion for making specific awards must be, above all, that of quality. Peer review, not Parliament or the Government, should determine who receives publicly provided funding for research. It follows from that that funding from the state cannot be guaranteed in perpetuity in any particular field of research.
Ample funding has already been provided by the state for which mesothelioma researchers are eligible to bid. The employer’s liability insurers have already provided funds for research and have indicated that they are willing to continue to do so. Therefore, the problem of finding money for research into mesothelioma is not a lack of money on the part of the state or a lack of money forthcoming from the insurers. The problem must be that there has been a lack of high-quality proposals for research in this field. There may have been some quite good proposals; I think that some 80% of bids to the National Institute of Health Research are unsuccessful. Such is the competition for funding from that source that only the very best receive it, so it is not only people who care very strongly about mesothelioma who are disappointed about the lack of funding in any particular field.
Are we to legislate simply to compel the employer’s liability insurers to do what they are already doing and have stated that they are willing to do? If, for good reason, we are not specifying an obligation on the Government, is the Minister none the less proposing to legislate thorough these amendments to place a moral, if not a legal, obligation on the state to fund mesothelioma uniquely, notwithstanding how weak academically particular proposals might be, and notwithstanding the needs that there are for research funding in other fields?
I am left feeling that these amendments, although I completely sympathise with their intention, do not yet articulate a satisfactory position. I think that in a moment the Minister will report to us on his conversations with the noble Earl, Lord Howe, who it is very good to see here listening to this debate, but I suspect that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, ought primarily to be addressing himself to the scientists rather than to the Government.
4.45 pm